014
by maggie1writing
Summary: Hopper finds a young girl in a hidden room of the lab. She was another test subject, 014. The two form a father-daughter bond, and Hopper finds himself starting to forget his grief of losing his own daughter. Please R&R!
1. The Lab

**AN: The idea for this story actually came to me in a dream! Haha! Hope you like it! Please review!**

 **(Disclaimer: I do not own any Stanger Things character or places)**

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 ** _BREAKING_ _NEWS: HAWKINS LABARATORY SHUT DOWN DUE TO ILLEGAL EXPERIMENTS ON MINORS_**

 _Emma Hatfield_

 _January 2_ _nd_ _,1984 The government-ran lab in Hawkins, Indiana has been shut down due to illegal experiments on minors. An anonymous report claimed that a 12-year-old girl has been found after being experimented on due to Dr. Martin Brenner's hypothesis of the girl having "powers", such as telekinesis and telepathy. No such evidence has been found by state doctors and medical professionals. The girl's identity is to be remained unknown. Dr. Martin Brenner is awaiting trial and is being held in custody while the investigation is being held. Investigators began searching for evidence in the laboratory on Friday morning. No report has been given._

Jim Hopper POV

To say that I was curious was sort of an understatement. This wasn't a "want to know" situation, it was a need to know. After all that had happened involving this lab, I just had a feeling that something else was in there, something that could hold the secrets to the "Upside Down" and how El came to be. Poor kid. Ever since we had found her again, she'd maybe said on or two words. We still had no clue what had happened to her after she defeated the Demogorgon and disappeared.

As I pulled the cruiser into the long driveway of Hawkins National Laboratory, I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. 1:33am. Perfect timing. There were absolutely no cars or any signs of investigators. I thought back to the newspaper article I'd read earlier. Surely, since they had been there since Friday, they would have found some evidence of what went on here.

The halls were deserted, and dark. Much different than the last time I was here. I shuddered at the thought. The fact that I had almost basically murdered a young girl haunts me to this day.

I saw the familiar radioactive barrier, and walked through it. So what if there were cameras everywhere, I got myself out of this place last time without being killed. There was a hallway to my left, the one I traveled down two months ago when I found the gate. Man, that seems like ages ago. There was also a hallway to my right. I decided to turn and go down that one, I'd never been in it before.

There was only one door in this hallway, at the very end. In this room, there was a chair, a table with a lamp on it, and one single bookshelf. Seemed suspicious enough. It was just too _plain_ for a lab like this. There had to be something more. I thought back to all the books I'd read as a kid, and to Sarah. About the swinging bookshelves that opened when you pulled out a certain book. It was really cliché, but who knows.

I scanned my fingertips along the tip of the bookshelf. They came away dusty. I looked at each of the books until I found the one without the dust. Of course Dr. Brenner would do something like this. Not too obvious, but just obvious enough so that someone, someday would find it. I pulled the book. The bookshelf opened. Well, I'd seen stranger things happen.

What I saw next did not surprise me either. What a sick, sadistic man. There was a row of prison cells running down the left side of the hallway I now stood in. They hallway was decorated almost like a nursery, with floating clouds and farm animals painted on the walls. The first cell was labeled 010. The next one, 011. It was the only one whose door was open. I didn't even have to think about why that was. But, why did El have a bedroom, when the rest of them had to stay in here? Then, I noticed something. Above the cell 010, there was a date, September 4th, 1983, and a big red "X". I shuddered. So, El was the current alive subject? It was the only theory that made sense to me right now. I slowly walked down the rest of the hallway, only to find more cells exactly like it. I was about to turn back around when I heard it. Footsteps. Coming from somewhere in the hallway I was in. Strange, I hadn't seen anything in there before. I walked back and looked into each of the cells. 020, empty. 019, empty. 018, 017, 016, 015, all empty. I stopped in my tracks when I came to the next cell.

The face I saw looking back at me was one of terror. Of pure, utter fear. I took a step back, startled.


	2. The Girl

**AN: Hope ya liked chapter 1!**

 **(Disclaimer: I do not own any Stranger Things Characters or places. I only own 014!)**

 **Review please!**

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014 POV

Footsteps. From the sound of it, boots. A deep breath in, a deep breath out. They're getting closer. But, from my position behind the bed, whoever they are, I'm guessing they probably won't see me, but I can see them. They pass. Cop uniform. Beard. Alright, it's about time. I've been sitting in this cell for 5 days. No wait, scratch that. I've been sitting in this cell for 5 days _without_ food or water. I've been sitting in this cell for 7 _years_ with it. I kept waiting and waiting, just for them to _do_ something with me. It gets pretty boring after seven years of just sitting and waiting, sitting and waiting. Yeah, sure, they would let me out from time to time, but otherwise I sit in here and rot.

I decide that now is that now may be the time to do something if I ever wanted to get out of here alive. I start to stand up, but then I stop myself. What if he was just another Hawkins Lab employee that had come to take me away to wherever they were hiding. Oh, well. At least I wouldn't die. I stand up fully, and timidly walk over to the cell door and stand there, grasping the bars. I see him turn around, taking a good look into every cell before coming to mine. When he reaches me, he takes a step back. So do I.

"Hey, hey, I'm not gonna hurt you," he says in the kindest, gentle voice I've ever heard. I don't say anything back, because I'm too surprised by the sound of his voice. He sounded like my father, almost exactly. But it couldn't be him, since he was dead, along with my mother the day I turned 8 years old and these wretched people came and took me away. He holds his hands up, like he's asking my permission if he can come closer. I take a shaky breath in, and he takes that as a sign. He takes a step closer, and I instinctively take one back again.

"Who are you? Where did you come from?" I ask him. His eyes go wide and his mouth falls open. What did I do wrong? I just asked him a question. My eyebrows furrow.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I just didn't expect you to be so, I don't know, _intelligent_. But, we'll discuss that later. Right now, we need to work on getting you out of here, alright?" I nod. I pointed behind him. There, on the wall, was a key ring and a set of keys. He takes them down, and finds the one to my cell. He unlocks it, and the door swings open with a big groan. He shakes his head. And for the first time in God knows how long, I stepped out of my cell.

Jim Hopper POV

The minute she started her first steps out of the cell, she started swinging on her feet. I grabbed her before she was fully down, and started walking out of the lab. I didn't notice at first, but as I continued to carry her, I noticed how light she was. Like a feather almost. I also noticed that I could feel her ribs through her hospital gown. She was so pale, too. Her eyelids were an almost purple color. She was sweating, and by the looks of it, running a fever. Poor kid. She almost didn't even look like a kid, though. She was maybe 15 or 16. And locked up her entire life. It was sickening to think about. No kid deserves to live out their childhood in torturous conditions, or even killed before they could grow up. I thought back to 010's cell, and how old they might have been when they died. 9? 10? Older? Younger?

The only choice here was to take her to the hospital. I was a good enough liar, I would just tell the police that I found her in the woods. If they found out more, fine. I just wouldn't be a part of it. I sit her gingerly in the front seat and walked around. I wondered as I drove. Her hair wasn't short, like El's. It was just above her shoulders. And she could talk? That came as a little bit of a surprise to me. Not only could she talk, but she could form full sentences. Nothing about this made sense. You would expect El and this girl to have a little bit in common, since they came from the same place? Apparently, that wasn't the case. I looked over at her. She was fast asleep against the window, and the fever was making the little space her head was touching fog up the glass.

The drive to the hospital wasn't long. I tried to panic a little bit, because a guy who just found a girl in the middle of the woods would be panicked, right? Even if he was a cop? I parked the cruiser in the spot closest to the doors and rushed out. I hurriedly ran to the other side and jerked open the door. I lifted the girl into my arms, and halfway ran through the doors of the emergency room.

"Hey I need some help over here!" I shouted. I saw all the nurses in the waiting room rush over to me and take the girl from my arms. I felt a twinge of sadness, or nostalgia, I didn't know, wash over me. It just reminded me way too much of _Sarah._


End file.
